Pacific Ocean

Swirling Underwater Fish Tornado Makes Sharknado Look Tame

As currents shift in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, they bring an abundance of nutrients and plankton to the region, luring predators of all sizes. Swarms of anchoveta arrive first for an easy meal, but soon find themselves having to come up with unique ways to fend off larger predators like sharks and tuna. The result…

Something Strange and Terrible Is Happening to Mussels 

Do you enjoy eating mussels? Cool, same. Something, however, is happening to mussels as we know them. And it’s changing them in a pretty horrifying way. A team of researchers from the University of Chicago has been comparing the shells of live mussels pulled from the Pacific coast today with historical shells, some of them…

Because of Climate Change, Five Pacific Islands Have Vanished

As climate change worsens around the world, its effects are increasingly being observed. One notable effect has been the disappearance of five Solomon Islands in the West Pacific due to rising sea levels. According to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters, five vegetated reef islands have vanished, while six additional islands are “experiencing…

NASA Maps Show Just How Crazy The Storm Season Was in the Pacific

It was an uncharacteristically quiet hurricane season in the Atlantic, but the same cannot be said for the eastern Pacific and central Pacific basins, which got absolutely hammered this year. New maps by NASA and Unisys Weather show the extent of this year’s storm season. The hurricane season in the Atlantic and the eastern and…

Why So Many Countries Are Building Airstrips on These Remote Islands

The Spratly islands are not a natural spot for a layover. They are isolated—tiny, shallow islands spread out over a huge chunk of the South China Sea. So why are so many nations rushing to construct airline runways and other infrastructure there? On a map, the islands look like someone flicked a paintbrush at Earth…

This Warm Ocean “Blob” May Be One Cause Of North America’s Wacky Weather

For the past two years, climate scientists have tracked a large and circular patch of unusually warm water off the Northeast U.S. Pacific Coast that doesn’t seem to want to go away. Dubbed “the blob”, it has now been linked to the strange weather recently experienced across North America. And yes, the weather has been…

This GIF Shows How Impossible It Is to Find a Plane in the Pacific

The Pacific Ocean is very, very big. Airplanes are big, too—but, compared to the Pacific Ocean, they are almost comically small. So, as rescuers finish up a week of searching unsuccessfully for Malaysia Air Flight 370, it’s worth taking a second to marvel at what an impossible a task it is to find one little…

Japan’s new island keeps growing

Back in November, volcanic activity along the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire” gave rise to a tiny new island in Japanese territory. According to new reports, the island — named Niijima — is still erupting and growing. Niijima is located about 600 miles (1,000 km) south of Tokyo and sits about 80…

The effects of global warming have reached even the ocean deep. New analyses – published in the latest issue of Science – reveal that water temperatures a kilometer below the surface of the Pacific Ocean have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than at any time in the last 10,000. [New Scientist]

The Bering Land Bridge nearly wrecked the Earth’s climate

The land bridge that once connected North America and Asia rose from the seas 80,000 years ago. And at the same time, North America’s climate began experiencing violent climate swings, with average temperatures shifting as much as ten degrees every decade. That pattern of massive temperature swings lasted a whopping 70,000 years, which just so…

Meet the Bloop, the mysterious sound from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean

In the summer of 1997, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration picked up a sound from deep beneath the Pacific. The sound seemed to come from an animal far larger than any we’ve ever seen. This was the Bloop. The Bloop is one of about a half-dozen unexplained sounds that the NOAA’s Acoustic Monitoring…

How centuries of flooding turned the ancient Chinese into seafarers

About 9,000 years ago, the Fuzhou Basin in southeastern China fell victim to rising sea levels, pushing underwater the marshy lands needed for rice farming. The marooned people there became seafarers, which eventually led to the colonization of Taiwan. The long-term flooding of the Fuzhou Basin completely changed the topography of the region, turning what…

How many groups reached the Americas before Christopher Columbus?

In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in what is now the Bahamas, changing the world forever. But was he first non-indigenous person to reach the Americas? Vikings got there before him, and possibly Polynesians too…and those are just the sane theories. Before we get started on this, I want to make one thing clear – this…

Plastiki, the Ship Made From 12,000 Plastic Bottles, Will Set Sail This Month

After what feels like years of concept renders and photos of the hairy David de Rothschild accompanying gushing magazine pieces about his plastic bottle boat, the Plastiki will set sail this month across the Pacific Ocean. https://gizmodo.com/boat-made-from-plastic-pet-bottles-to-sail-on-11-000-mi-5166844 If you’ll remember, the boat was constructed using 12,000 plastic 2-liter bottles, which have been pressurized using dry…